Cody Daniel made this sign out of Christmas lights to propose to Jess Cadieux, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. Daniel hooked the sign up to a dock at the Burlington waterfront. (Courtesy photo)

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Free Press Staff

Cody Daniel made this sign out of Christmas lights to propose to Jess Cadieux, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. Daniel hooked the sign up to a dock at the Burlington waterfront. (Courtesy photo)

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For 16 hours Cody Daniel, a registered nurse at Fletcher Allen Health Care, was toiling away with Christmas lights in a shed behind his Williston house. He wasn’t, though, decorating for the holiday.

Last Wednesday he took his project down to the Burlington Waterfront near the Splash at the Boathouse restaurant and attached it to a dock facing the shore.

After dark he walked his girlfriend, Jess Cadieux, 29, down to the shore after a dinner out.

Daniel, 26, praying that the timer and car battery his lights were connected to would work, waited for his project to illuminate in the shape of the words “Marry Me?”

Cadieux, also a registered nurse, and Daniel met in April after he arrived as a traveling nurse under contract with the Burlington hospital. By the summer they were in love and watched the fireworks together on the waterfront on July 3. It was that memory that inspired him to choose the location for his proposal.

“I wanted to do something different, something I’d never really seen before so I just started brainstorming ideas.”

Daniel attached the red Christmas lights to a plywood board, and with permission from the owner of Splash found a spot to display it. The trick was finding a power source.

“That was a big worry of mine. I wasn’t even sure we would be able to see it because it’s about 400 yards away.”